A Beautiful Day & Changing Seasons

Yesterday afternoon my in-laws stopped in to visit. As we sat on the porch sipping our iced tea on a hot muggy day we noticed there were flocks and flocks of swallows swooping and soaring over the yard. The sky was full of them……everywhere.

Every fall, like clockwork,  we have cliff swallows migrate through as the weather starts to change. Living by a small river we get to see a lot of different birds on their migration paths in the spring and in the fall. It is one of the most rewarding things about living where we do.

I went out this afternoon hoping to snap a picture of a line full of swallows. They were nowhere to be seen. All that was left sitting on those lines were four of our resident barn swallows. I was grateful they were at least still there, ready to be photographed. I do think I should have taken the camera out yesterday.

I mentioned to my husband that it seemed some of our other summer birds were starting to disappear. I was not even sure when I had last seen a robin. I am guessing a few might show up again this fall but for now they seem to be pretty scarce around here.

It does not seem that long ago that those first swallows and robins showed up to signal the start to summer. I never used to believe my grandparents and later my parents; when they would tell me that the older you get the faster time seems to go. I used to laugh and suggest that maybe the older they got, the slower they moved, so time seemed to go faster. I am going to have to remember to NOT mention the swifter passing of time to my kids. I have no need of being reminded that I am getting older.

There is a comfort in the constancy of the changing seasons. The birds show up in the spring, nest, raise families and then leave in the fall. They don’t worry about what is happening in this world. They just do what birds do. And they seem to do that with great joy.

Perhaps there is a lesson in that constancy for us.( I know there is something I can learn from it.)  Perhaps we are not to worry about what the weather will do. Perhaps we are not to worry about who the next president will be. Perhaps we are not to worry about what direction our job is taking. Maybe we are not called to worry if our kids are making good choices.  And the list goes on you fill in the blank with your favorite worry.

Maybe, instead, we are supposed to tend our fields and let God take care of the weather, Maybe we are supposed to get out and vote and let God take care of the character of the next president and the decisions they will be called to make. Maybe we are to do the best we can at our job and let God handle how the boss or our co- workers react. Maybe we are called to be the best parents we can be, raise our kids and pray for them and let God take care of the rest as those kids make their life choices. Maybe, just maybe, we are supposed to let God be God.

There is a comfort in that. The comfort of not always having to have it all under control. That can be exhausting. Maybe that is why the birds can sing so joyously in the morning…..they are not burdened with trying to be something they are not, or trying to control something that is not theirs to control.

There is a comfort in knowing that life is like the seasons. The season might change from spring to summer to fall to winter …. but spring will come again and those summer birds will arrive on time.

For some reason this post did not take the path I thought it would when I started it. I have that more often when blogging. Sometimes thoughts I didn’t even know I had  seem to come out of my fingertips and end up as the words of my posts.(My husband is always a great help with prying those thoughts loose.)

I am learning to go with the thoughts and just type the words that are swirling in my head…..maybe I am learning to have some bird-like qualities!

Faith is the bird
that feels the light
when the dawn is still dark.
Rabindranath Tagore
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